


You Were the Song Stuck in My Head

by buoyantsaturn



Category: Percy Jackson and the Olympians & Related Fandoms - All Media Types
Genre: Childhood Friends, M/M, Trans!Nico, nicos in a band, will goes from 0 to obsessed in 60 seconds
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-05
Updated: 2017-05-05
Packaged: 2018-10-28 12:42:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,020
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10831509
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/buoyantsaturn/pseuds/buoyantsaturn
Summary: Kayla takes Will to a show and he falls in love with the music (but mostly the singer)





	You Were the Song Stuck in My Head

**Author's Note:**

> i dont remember why i did this but i love band aus and i love trans boy nico so heres both in one

Will had only known his half siblings, Kayla and Austin, for a few years, but as soon as they’d all met, they immediately discovered their common interest in music. Now, Will still wasn’t too sure what it was that Kayla did for work, but sometimes she would call him up and tell him to clear a day on his calendar, because her work had given her a few tickets to some band coming to town. 

Will tried his best to go to every show because he hardly ever got chances to hang out with his sister - plus sometimes the bands were really good - and Will had never loved going to shows as much as he did with Kayla.

The most recent show Kayla had gotten tickets to was a four-man band that Will had never heard of, playing in a warehouse on the edge of the city. Being a warehouse and all, the venue was standing room only, and the stage looked like it might’ve been made out of cardboard boxes, but the lead singer jumped around regardless. 

The band’s vibe was one of Will’s favorite things, which sounds pretty stupid, but it was usually one of the most important aspects for a band that Will saw in person. This one, for example, definitely had that average-emo undertone, but as the show progressed, the band sounded as though they were rapidly healing, right there in front of them. The songs blended seamlessly from hard, sad, and angry to upbeat and dancey. It was almost a shock when the last song played was also their slowest, the lead singer - who Will had his eyes glued to from across the warehouse for the entire show - picked up a guitar and practically whispered words into the microphone. The soft melody had Will falling in love.

It was bands like this one that had Will falling asleep in front of his computer the night after a show, after having researched them late into the early morning, listening to their entire discography and watching recent interviews with the band members. Needless to say, when Will got into a band, he didn’t half-ass anything about it.

When Will got home from the show that night, he’d done his usual amount of research, increasingly glad he’d remembered to take the rest of the week off work as the minutes ticked by in the corner of his computer screen. He’d started off as he usually did, finding cell-phone videos of previous shows, just so that Will could hold onto that concert-high just a little longer. There was something he seemed to find more in these videos, however, than he saw at his own show: the lead singer was pretty vocal with his audience  _ (obviously, _ he  was the singer after all, but that’s not what Will meant). He  _ spoke _ to them, like he was holding a conversation with everyone in the stadium at the same time, and it was  _ adorable. _ Especially when he laughed, a beautiful soft giggle where he would keep the microphone close to his lips but cover his mouth with his hands as if it would block the sound.

It wasn’t long before Will had gotten himself well and deep into a Youtube spiral (he did the same thing with Wikipedia articles when he hadn’t slept in the last 20 or so hours) and stumbled across a video called  _ The Evolution of Nico di Angelo. _ At this point, Will had already realized that that was the lead singer’s name - the bassist was Jason, the drummer was Percy, and the lead guitarist was Frank - so he clicked the video and waited for the ad beforehand to play through. 

The video started off with a shot of a kid with a guitar sitting on a stool. He had black hair, obviously dyed, cut in a stereotypically emo style. Will wanted to say that this kid seemed familiar, but he’d seen that same haircut on too many people to count, so he couldn’t be sure. He was wearing what seemed like five layers of shirts, which couldn’t have been comfortable, but if his voice was anything to go by, he didn’t seem bothered at all. Even nearly ten years prior, that voice was beautiful.

The clip cut away quickly to a video at a bar, the cameraperson obviously at the back of the room. A date flashed across the bottom, a couple of years after the first clip. This time, Nico’s standing onstage, barely seeming to move at all but still singing just as gracefully into the poorly-wired microphone. His hair was shorter and he seemed to have dropped about four layers of shirts - probably for the best, since the room was most likely pretty warm, considering the size of their audience.

The next clip flashed onto the screen, the cameraperson in the front of the crowd this time, probably in the pit at a stadium. The camera, after swiveling back and forth across the stage a few times, landed on Nico, already in the process of unbuttoning the shirt he was wearing. “Is it just me, or is it getting kinda hot in here?” he asked his audience, letting the shirt fly open, not bothering to remove it completely. “Just me, then? Alright, that’s fine.” He moved toward the edge of the stage, standing still long enough that Will could get a good look at what he was wearing underneath. Was that what Will thought it was? Yes! Underneath Nico’s shirt was a plain black binder that he seemed to be proudly showing off. Will...never would have guessed that Nico was trans, but something about that-- It seemed to trigger Will’s memory, trying to alert him to... _ whatever _ it was he was trying to remember.

The next clip was the shortest of all, just long enough for Will to recognize Nico onstage, completely shirtless, with noticeable scars on his ribcage - evidence of his top surgery. Will was pretty sure he didn’t even know this boy, but he felt a surge of pride for him, anyway.

The clip cut away quickly to Nico sitting in an interview, the man asking the questions immediately asking, “Why do you feel like it’s so important that your fans know that you’re gay  _ and _ transgendered?”

Nico smiled brightly, hands already held up off the arms of his chair, ready to gesture like crazy as he spoke. “It’s  _ super _ important. A lot of people don’t realize how important it is to have representation in the media because they  _ already have _ representation. It’s minorities like myself that don’t really have anyone to look up to, like I didn’t have  _ anybody _ like me when I was growing up, and, like, I know that a depressed piece of garbage like me isn’t exactly the  _ best _ representation for people to have, but I’m working on it, you know?”

“Would you mind telling us the inspiration for some of the songs off your newest album?” the interviewer asked. “You’ve got an unusually high number of songs that almost seem like love songs. Where did those come from?”

Nico was smiling again, but this time he seemed like he was trying to hide behind his hand. “So, a lot of those sort-of love songs were actually written when I was pre-transition in high school. Almost all of my angst-driven songs that I wrote in that time period were put on the earlier albums, but none of the love songs ever made it in. Honestly, I wrote just as many of those as I did the angsty ones, but they were never quite as good. So for this last album, I fixed up a couple of those songs, and we made them work.”

“So all of your love songs are based on high school crushes?” the interviewer clarified.

“Well, not  _ all  _ of them,” Nico answered. “Like, um,  _ Kaleidoscope, _ Jason wrote that one. That’s about his wife, who was just his girlfriend at the time. But there was, um,  _ Golden Boy, _ which people always assume I wrote about Jason - which, love the guy, but no, absolutely not.  _ Golden Boy _ was this boy I liked in high school, he was my sister’s friend, his name’s Will. But, like I said, he had a lot of songs, most of them just didn’t make it onto any albums.”

All of a sudden, Will remembered where he knew this kid from.

 

* * *

 

 

Since Will had taken so much time off work, he had plenty of time to look over Nico’s Twitter and see that the band was going to be doing a signing at a record store downtown. He walked through the door just as he saw the band members heading toward another exit. Will, in some sort of panic, called out, “Nico!” instead of having, you know, a decent idea of what he was doing.

He saw Nico’s shoulders sag slightly, before the shortest of the quartet spun around with a smile on his face that melted away almost instantly into something much more like shock. At what, Will didn’t know. 

In person, Will noticed, Nico’s hair was a lot more brown than it appeared on video or in dark venues, and his eyes were nearly the same color. He had a soft dusting of freckles across his cheeks and nose, and it was around that discovery that Will realized that he’d been staring.

“Um,” Nico started, drawing Will out of his observations. “Did you want me to sign something for you?”

Will...didn’t think that far. “I was, uh, kinda hoping to just talk to you for a second, actually? If that’s okay? I, um, I think we went to high school together.”

Will noticed out of the corner of his eye that Jason was making his way toward them, throwing an arm around Nico’s shoulder as soon as he was close enough to do so. “Everything alright over here, Neeks?” he asked, staring Will down.

Nico shoved at Jason’s side, but he didn’t budge.

“My name is Will Solace,” Will said quickly, holding out a hand to Jason and hoping he seemed as unthreatening as possible. Jason’s arm fell from around Nico’s shoulders, shaking Will’s hand firmly, and Will noticed Nico’s eyes had somehow widened even  _ more. _

“Will Solace?” Nico repeated.

Will nodded. “I think we met in high school, but I don’t remember your pretransition name, so I don’t really have any way to prove to you that I knew you then, but, um. I graduated with your sister Bianca. Do you, um, remember me?”

Nico seemed frozen for a moment, but nodded his head slowly. “Yeah, yeah I remember you.” He looked like he wanted to say something more, but frowned suddenly instead. “You didn’t come to her funeral.”

Will winced, scratching at the back of his awkwardly. “I was super busy at school, I couldn’t make it, and I know that’s not the best excuse, but I came to visit a few weeks later and...you were gone.” Nico glanced off to the side, and Will changed the subject as quickly as possible. “Do you think I could take you out to lunch? Or dinner? Coffee, even, just so we can catch up, or something?”

Nico glanced up at him with the tiniest of nods. “Are you free right now? I’m kinda busy later, we’ve got a thing.”

“Now’s good, yeah,” Will replied. 

“Before you head out,” Jason cut in. “It’s not that I don’t trust you, Will, but sometimes people can be creeps, and--”

“And Jason’s taken over responsibility as my older sibling,” Nico explained, rolling his eyes and crossing his arms.

“Can I get your phone number so I have something to give to the cops if Nico goes missing?” Jason asked, completely straight faced. “Also, that way I’ll have it in case you forget to give it to Nico after your date.”

Nico buried his face in his hands, groaning audibly as Will and Jason exchanged numbers. Jason clapped Nico on the shoulder when the two of them had finished. “Enjoy your date, dude,” he said before turning away.

“Shut up,” Nico hissed. “You’re the worst brother I’ve ever had.”

 

They walked a few blocks down the street to a small diner, where Nico and Will sat across from each other in a booth. They started out with simple smalltalk, Nico asking Will what he did for a living, to which Will answered with, “I’m a doctor at the hospital nearby. But that’s kinda boring, compared to what you do, you know? So what’s been up with you? I mean, besides the obvious. I didn’t even know you were that into music!”

Nico gave a few short answers, clearly trying to avoid the topic of his songs - particularly the blond subject of some of his love songs. When Will asked him what it was like to be on tour so often, Nico told him, “It was kinda weird and uncomfortable at first, you know? Back when I was all angsty, and  _ depressed _ was basically my only descriptor, all I wanted was some time to myself, but when you’ve got five teenagers stuffed in a van, you don’t get any space. It got a lot easier when I could head home, even for like, a day, because then I could talk to Hazel about what was going on, and--”

Nico’s head shot up from where he was folding his straw wrapper on the table. “You never met Hazel! You graduated before she came!”

Will took a second to catch up to the sudden change of topic. “Uh, no? Never met Hazel.”

“Oh my god,” Nico muttered, whipping out his phone and jumping out of his seat at the same time. He slid into Will’s side of the booth, holding out his phone and swiping through pictures. “She’s my half sister, she had to move in with us because her mom died. Almost, like, exactly a year after Bianca died, I found out I had another sister. How weird is that?”

“I found out a few years ago that I have a half sister and a half brother,” Will told him. “Kayla’s actually the reason I found your band. She got tickets for your show a few nights ago from work and took me with her.”

“Yeah?” Nico asked, smiling up at him. “What’d you think?”

“You guys are…” Will took a second, trying to find a word that would fit. “Amazing, honestly. There’s gotta be a better word, but that’s all that’s coming to mind right now.”

“Thanks,” Nico told him, glancing downward. “That means a lot, coming from you.”

“Really?” Will asked. “Um, so, since we’re talking about a few nights ago, when I got home from your show, I went online and--”

“You looked me up immediately after the concert?” Nico cut in. “You didn’t pass out from exhaustion the second you stepped through the door? I was practically dead as soon as I stepped off the stage!”

“I can never sleep after concerts,” Will said defensively. “Too wired.  _ Anyway, _ I found this interview, where you were talking about the, um, inspiration for some of your songs?” Nico looked up at him, head tilted slightly in confusion. “Um, love songs?”

“Oh,” Nico whispered, ducking his head, though not fast enough to hide his growing blush from Will. “I guess there’s not really any way for me to talk my way out of that one, is there?” He took a breath. “Okay, so when we were in high school, I really liked you. Like,  _ really _ liked you. But I never wanted to seem like the loser kid that asked out their older sister’s friend. And, um, I also knew, then, that I wasn’t really a girl? And I didn’t know how you’d react to that, so I never told you, um, either of those things.”

Nico glanced up at Will, a little fearfully, a little hopefully. Will said to him, “Well, first of all, I liked you, too, but I never wanted to seem like the creepy older guy hitting on my best friend’s younger sibling.”

“You did?” Nico asked quietly.

Will nodded. “Honestly, though? I think I probably like you a lot more now.” He shrugged as he spoke. “You’re different now than you were then; good different. You’re happier now, and a lot more confident. You’re incredibly strong, and the fact that you’re out to literally the entire world, and you’re totally at peace with that-- I haven’t even told _my mom_ yet that I’m bi.”

Nico, ignoring most of that, whispered, “You really still like me? After all this time?”

“Yeah,” Will answered softly, tilting his head down, meeting Nico’s eyes.

Nico didn’t even hesitate for a second, just reached up and cupped Will’s jaw in his hand and pressed his lips to Will’s. He fell back immediately, letting his hand hover awkwardly in the air between them. “Shit, I...shouldn’t have done that, I’m sorry.”

Will pulled Nico’s hand out of the air. “No, Nico, it’s okay--”

“It’s really not,” Nico muttered, glancing down at his lap, “We’re touring Europe soon, for two months. I shouldn’t be trying to start something right now, so I’m sorry.”

“And I’m saying you shouldn’t be sorry,” Will told him gently. “I don’t care if you’re leaving tomorrow, or whenever--”

“Next week,” Nico cut in.

“--I’ve been waiting  _ years _ to talk to you again,” Will said. “I can wait a few more months. If you’re up for that?”

Nico glanced up through his eyelashes. “Uh, yeah. I’m up for that. Are you up for maybe coming over to my apartment here in the city and hanging out with me until I have to leave? We can play video games and watch movies and basically not leave at all, and it’ll be just like when we were in high school. Except, you know, no Bianca.” He paused. “Also hopefully a lot more kissing, if you’re up for that, too. Or not, if this is kinda too fast, or something.”

“I’m am  _ absolutely _ up for that,” Will told him quickly, leaning down to press another kiss to Nico’s lips.

**Author's Note:**

> theres a whole lot of build up at the beginning of this dang but hopefully the ending was worth it  
> thanks for reading!!!


End file.
